Untitled
by undertoad
Summary: Written as a request for luja14.  Pacey/Joey eventually.  AU/AH.  Will contain other DC characters...
1. Chapter 1

She had met him in one of her many English classes this semester. He was smart but didn't brag about it or talk down to her. He was chivalrous in that way that most men she had known had not been, in that he opened doors and pulled out her chair for her. He was attractive but not vain like most attractive men she had met were. He told corny jokes that make her smile during the most boring lectures she had been forced to sit through.

It had been quite a while since she had allowed herself to get this close to a member of the opposite sex. She started anticipating when she would see him next and by then she knew she was a goner. So, on the behest of her best friend, she had accepted his offer of a date after having turned him down several times prior.

But that voice in the back of her head that told her constantly that she was not good enough, or smart enough, or pretty enough, told her that this guy was too good to be true.

She hated when that voice was right.

Joey Potter was sitting alone in a college restaurant, trying not to look like she had been stood up. She tried not to dwell on the fact that her first date in three years was starting out like this. She had been occupying herself for the last twenty minutes by sipping her diet coke intermittently while people watching. Campus restaurants were always full of entertainment. She tried to keep herself busy so she would not dwell on the many reasons her date had to stand her up. Or more specifically, the one reason she was sure that he had.

"This seat taken?" A blond frat-boy asks, his mates behind him trying to keep watch on them discreetly.

"No." She smiles, "feel free," She offers and she grabs her coat and leaves without much incident, leaving the blond to pay her tab.

* * *

><p>When she got home, he was already sound asleep. She paid the sitter and then stole a look at him before heading towards her own bedroom. She slipped off her heals and sat down to log on to her computer. Her date had sent her an e-mail to let her know he couldn't make it, two minutes before he was supposed to meet her. Was it a coincidence that she had just recently told him that she had a son? She deleted it without reply, logged off, and busied herself with folding laundry.<p>

She tried to ignore the fact that it was Friday night.

Despite everything that had happened between them, on nights like this she missed her ex. She debated calling him but decided against it. It was safer going to sleep alone.

* * *

><p>Her handsome boy, with chocolate eyes and sandy hair, woke her up by jumping on her bed. She could faintly hear the television on in the next room playing Saturday morning cartoons. She smiled faintly as she rubbed the sleep from her eyes.<p>

"Five more minutes," She mumbled, half-heartedly, already on her way to being fully awake. She needed coffee.

"Make me cereal?" He asks, with a smile that definitely belonged to his father. It got her every time.

She slipped out from under her covers, missing their warmth as soon as she was up.

"Magic word?" She asked, pausing in her stride to the kitchen.

"Phlweeze" He muttered.

She combed her hair through with her fingers as she continued into the kitchen. She grabbed some cereal out of the cabinet; sugary empty-calories for him, boring and bland for her. She was on a diet again, thus she was always starving.

She notices the mail by the door and leafs through it, hoping to find something for her son. But her ex has conveniently forgotten to send their child a birthday card, not to mention the child support payment that is past due. Speaking of past due, the university has sent her a second notice regarding this semester's bill. She leaves the mail forgotten the kitchen counter and heads into the living room to help her son clean up his spilled cereal.

* * *

><p>Later that morning, at the park, Joey watches her son climb the jungle gym as she sits in a sunny area and tries her best to get the shading right on her latest sketch. Her phone rings in her bag and she is sure that it is her best friend Jen wanting the details of her date that hadn't happened. She digs in her bag to find her phone and when she looks up, he is gone.<p>

* * *

><p>His boss had given him the details over his cell as he drove to the scene. He was already overloaded with cases and not anticipating a new one, especially a lost cause like this one seemed. A little boy had disappeared from a park in broad daylight. No witnesses. Everyone at the park had been cooperative but all seemed to have seen nothing.<p>

He scratched under his chin, almost forgetting about his three days of beard growth until he felt it. When he pulled up to the scene, it was chaotic despite the heavy police presence. He sighed, drank the remainder of his stale coffee and shrugged into his jacket as he got out of his standard issue sedan.

He assesses the scene, a picturesque neighborhood park, complete with the smell of freshly cut grass. Most of the uniforms have finished their initial interviews of the locals and are just twiddling their thumbs waiting for a detective to arrive and give them direction. In the process they have trampled the crime scene despite their attempts not to.

He visually scans all the witnesses and none of them strike him as particularly guilty off the bat. His gut tells him that whoever took the child is long gone. His eyes find the mother quickly and he makes his way over to her, gearing himself up for the hardest part of the investigation.

Pacey feels guilty as he approaches her, knowing that he has to question her like a suspect. His gut tells him that he will be wasting precious time questioning her that he could be using assessing the collected evidence and witness statements so that the real investigation can begin, but it is standard procedure, especially in cases where there is a single parent.

He had some preliminary information on the mother, the child, the absentee father and their situation. She is a part-time college student, majoring in English, with a shitty job and hardly any support from the father of her child. Her little boy had turned three today.

He didn't really know what to expect when he laid eyes on her. But the last thing he expected was that he knew her.

Shit. This case suddenly got a little more complicated.


	2. Chapter 2

He had kissed her once.

He remembered it vividly the second he saw her again.

_He remembered spending half the night trying to figure out just the right words. But when his words failed him, as they often had back then, he had just decided to kiss her to let her know how he felt._

_He had been the first to pull away that night, which he had figured was a sign in his favor. He had not wanted her to feel as though he were pressuring her so he had stopped the kiss before he really had wanted to._

_After her initial shock wore off, she had looked at him with those big, impossibly brown eyes and they had said more than her awkward fumbling with words could have. She then told him that while she was "surprised and flattered" by his kiss, that she was "involved" with someone else._

_He knew the someone else she spoke of; some drama club guy that was her neighbor and only paid her attention when his blond arm-candy of the moment was tired of his company. Her crush on the guy was one of the worst kept secrets in school, not that many people paid it much attention._

_He had known this much about her this morning, but not much else, when he had been assigned to work with her on a school project._

_What had started out as a way to pass the time, his wry observations of her life to make conversation, had quickly become a history lesson in all that was Joey Potter. While at first he thought she was oversharing he came to appreciate the fact that she was such a trusting person to feel as though she could give him the gritty details of her life. _

_Or, maybe, it was his trusting eyes. He had been told once he had sincere eyes._

_By the end of the evening he had come to realize that there wasn't anything he did not like about her. All he could remember about the ride back to her place to drop her off was his sweaty palms on the steering wheel and the awkward silence of the car ride. They did talk on that ride but it was brief, full of constant starts and stops in conversation, as he tried to find the words to ask her out._

The sweaty palms were back.

He was sure that she had forgotten him but the second their eyes met he saw a flash of recognition. The look in her eyes was haunted and pleading and broke his heart all over again.

He asked her the routine questions and kept his eyes trained on his note pad where he jotted down the few details that she could give. Had it been any other mother he would have likely suspected her due to her calm attitude. However, having known her in the past, he knew that she was very adept at concealing how she felt. She put on a brave face but he could see through it. Her hands were trembling as she absently played with a simple ring on her right hand.

* * *

><p>Once upon a time, Joey Potter had defined her life as before and after she had met Dawson Leery. For the longest time he was the most important person in her life. At times her best friend, confidant and at one point her boyfriend. Even in that awkward period after their relationship had dissolved he had always been honest with her, even painfully so at times.<p>

Now her life was defined by her son, her life before him and her life with him. She did not want to consider for one moment that she would have to face her life without him. Despite her pregnancy being unplanned, and feeling inadequate as a parent at times, especially in the beginning, she had never regretted having him and not "getting rid of him" like her ex had suggested.

And while a master at keeping her emotion under wraps, nothing had ever been this frightening and painful in her entire life. Her baby boy was out there somewhere, likely with a stranger…and who knew their intentions.

Despite having recognized Pacey, she could not place him quite yet. She knew that she had met him long ago, most likely back in Capeside. Had they met under different circumstances she might have told him how good he looked, especially minus the "Julius Cesar" haircut she could distinctly picture on him. But her mind was otherwise occupied and the best she could do was answer his questions.

"Ms Potter, I know this is difficult, but do you believe for any reason that his father might be responsible?"

She thought of her ex bitterly but shook her head and sighed, "No. He's never even asked to see him. He doesn't care."

It was then that her façade fell away and she broke down in tears. Not for her ex but for what he had denied their son: a father. She had failed them both. She had failed her son by not keeping a better eye on him. She had failed her ex by living up to his expectation of her.

* * *

><p>Despite having grown up with two sisters, Pacey was ill equip to deal with a crying woman. Usually one of the uniforms was quick to step in the offer reassurance at scenes like this. But they had made themselves scarce while he interviewed the mother.<p>

So he reached out to her, wrapped his arm around her shoulders and when she did not flinch away, or push him away, she accepted his arms. He pulled her against him and rubbed her back soothingly as her body was wracked with sobs.


End file.
